Rumors that British authorities in Palestine may impose collective fires upon the Jewish community were heard in Jerusalem today as the British cruiser Liverpool dropped anchor off Jaffa.

(In London, officials of the Colonial Office denied that there is a plan to impose collective punishment upon the Jews in Jerusalem for the bombing of the King David Hotel. However, they indicated that “drastic measures” may be expected.)

The situation in the city remained tense as twelve more bodies were recovered today from the wreckage of the Palestine government offices in the hotel. The death toll tonight was officially stated to be 61.

There are still 63 people missing and 47 injured, the official statement said, giving the total number of casualties as 171.

More than 700 Jews living in a slum quarter behind the King David Hotel and the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem’s walled “Old City” have been rounded up and interrogated by police authorities during the past 24 hours, it was announced today. Of these, thirty are being held for further investigation.

The names of 14 British government officials killed and missing in Monday’s explosion were listed today. Among the bodies recovered today was that of M. Rosen, a senior Jewish civil servant in the Attorney General’s office.

An armed guard escorted the funeral cortege of twelve British army victims on a thirty-mile journey from Jerusalem to Ramleh today. The bodies were interred in the military cemetery on the outskirts of the city.

The immediate resignation of the executive of the Jewish Agency, as well as the executive of the Jewish National Council, is demanded today in Haarotz, organ of the General Zionists. “It isn’t that we think that the members of the two executives are directly or indirectly responsible for the outbreaks, but something has happened in the Yishuv which must be handled otherwise than it is being handled,” the paper says.

Dr. Nathan Altman, speaking for the World Executive of the United Zionists-Revisionists, said today that “we stand aghast and grieved beyond measure at the heavy toll of victim of the King David bombing.” He pointed out, however, that “the government’s decision to pursue an anti-Zionist policy — annulment of the mandate in practice — and its clear intention of preventing fulfillment of Jewish aspirations, and forcibly withhold salvation from the Jewish people, have inevitably driven the Jewish community to complete despair.”